Kamran Bokhari
In an eight-minute video clip
titled "Onward, Lions of Syria" disseminated on the Internet Feb. 12,
al Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri expressed al Qaeda's support for the popular
unrest in Syria. In it, al-Zawahiri urged Muslims in Turkey, Iraq, Lebanon and
Jordan to aid the Syrian rebels battling Damascus. The statement comes just
days after a McClatchy report quoted unnamed American intelligence officials as
saying that the Iraqi node of the global jihadist network carried out two
attacks against Syrian intelligence facilities in Damascus, while Iraqi Deputy
Interior Minister Adnan al-Assadi said in a recent interview with AFP that
Iraqi jihadists were moving fighters and weapons into neighboring Syria.
Al Qaeda's long-term goal has
been to oust Arab governments to facilitate the return of a transnational
caliphate. Its tactics have involved mainly terrorism intended to cause U.S.
intervention in the region. Al Qaeda has hoped such interventions would in turn
incite popular uprisings that would bring down the Arab regimes, opening the
way for the jihadists to eventually take power. But the jihadist network's
efforts have failed and they have remained a marginal player in the Arab world.
By addressing Syria, al Qaeda hopes to tap into the past year of Arab unrest, a
movement in which it played little to no part.
The region's regimes have been
on the defensive due to the rise of political Islamism, growing public
disillusionment and the sectarian Sunni-Shiite split, though foreign military
intervention has been required to actually topple them, as we saw in Libya.
Growing uncertainty in the region and the gradual weakening of these regimes
gives jihadists an opportunity to reassert their relevance. Al-Zawahiri's
statement, however, represents a continuation of the central leadership's
inability to do more than issue taped statements from its Pakistani hideouts,
much less engage in strategic planning.
Jihadists and the Middle East
Unrest
Al Qaeda's extreme
transnational agenda always has had limited appeal to the Arab masses. Popular
unrest in Arab countries and the empowerment of political Islamists via
elections in Egypt and Tunisia have underscored the jihadists' irrelevance to
societies in the Islamic world. The jihadists have failed to oust a sitting
government anywhere in the Islamic world, even in Afghanistan, where the
Taliban's rise to power in the mid-1990s occurred in a power vacuum.
Recognizing their limitations, jihadists have focused on conducting attacks
intended to create crises within target countries and in those countries'
external relations -- as is the case in Pakistan and Yemen. The jihadist hope
has been to create enough disorder that they would eventually be able to seize
power.
This approach has proved
difficult because Arab governments (despite their weaknesses) have been
resilient and societal fragmentation has not worked to the advantage of
jihadists. A second option has been to try to take advantage of power vacuums
that were created by other forces. Iraq presented one such opportunity when
U.S. forces ousted the Baathist regime in 2003, allowing for the emergence of
al Qaeda's then-most active node. In Iraq, the country's Shiite majority posed
a daunting obstacle to the jihadists even before the jihadists alienated their
Iraqi Sunni allies to the point that they began siding with the Americans,
which led to a degradation of the jihadist network in Iraq. By contrast,
post-Gadhafi Libya, with its proliferation of militias -- some of which have
both Islamist and jihadist tendencies -- could become a more welcoming place
for jihadists. But even if Libya were to descend into Islamist militancy,
geography would most likely prevent it from spreading too far beyond Libya's
borders.
However, given Syria's
strategic location at the crossroads of so many key geopolitical fault lines,
the meltdown of the Syrian state could easily result in a regional conflict.
Most stakeholders oppose foreign military intervention in Syria for this very
reason. Many states are eyeing the strategic goal of weakening Iran geopolitically through the ouster of the Alawite regime in Syria, but even that
prospect may not be enough to offset the potential costs.
Jihadists' Prospects in Syria
With or without foreign
intervention, jihadists in the region have ample room for maneuver in Syria.
The most significant regional jihadist presence lies across the Syrian border
in Iraq. These forces benefited from Damascus' decision to back Sunni
insurgents from 2003 to 2007. The consolidation of Shiite power in Iraq greatly
weakened these forces. Now that Syria is unraveling and armed resistance to the
regime is shaping up, the jihadist flow is reversing direction, with jihadists
now entering Syria from Iraq.
Al Qaeda in Iraq sought to
channel Sunni disenfranchisement at the hands of the Shia, but now the group is
looking to help Syrian Sunnis empower themselves at the expense of the
Iranian-backed Alawites. Jihadist forces within striking distance of Syria are
likely trying to exploit the unpopularity of the Alawite regime among Sunnis as
a way to gain a foothold in Syria.
The level of factionalization
among the Syrian rebels works to the advantage of jihadists. Just as Iraq's
Sunni tribal forces, Islamists and Baathists cooperated with the jihadists
against U.S troops and the country's new Shia-dominated security forces, many
elements within Syria's Sunni population would be willing to align with
jihadists given the constraints they face in battling the well-armed
Alawite-dominated Syrian military.
Complicating matters, the
Syrian intelligence apparatus has long cultivated ties with jihadists to
insulate Damascus from jihadist attacks and to use jihadists in proxy wars with
Syria's neighbors. As the state gets more and more embroiled in the internal
conflict and the intelligence apparatus gets bogged down with rising
distractions at home, these jihadist elements who have been on the payroll of
Syrian intelligence can turn against their former handlers along the lines of
what has happened in Pakistan and Yemen.
In addition to the jihadists
based in Iraq and those who have long worked with the Syrian regime,
neighboring Jordan and Lebanon host jihadist forces that also see opportunities
in the Syrian unrest. Saudi Arabia also has Sunni militants angered by the
killing of Sunnis at the hands of what they call the "infidel"
Alawite regime. Just as the Saudis redirected their own jihadists toward
fighting in Iraq instead of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh could encourage jihadist
non-state actors to fight in Syria. A recent fatwa from a number of top Sunni
religious scholars (including some prominent Saudis) forbidding membership in
the Syrian security forces would help in this regard.
Regional stakeholders are
reluctant to see foreign military intervention, leaving the option of covert
support in the form of supplying weapons to the Syrian rebels. Jihadists can be
expected to make use of such covert support as they work to insert themselves
in Syria. Even if weapons aren't intended for jihadists, the increased flow of
weapons and training into Syria provide an additional opportunity for jihadists
to build on this support by offering more battle-hardened experience to a still
disorganized armed resistance.
But while neither the domestic
opponents of the Syrian regime nor the international stakeholders have an
interest in seeing Syria collapse into sectarian conflict, jihadists want just
that. As in Iraq, we could see bombings against Alawites and other non-Sunni
groups, including Iranian and Hezbollah targets. This could be extended to
attacks in Lebanon in an attempt to stoke a regional sectarian conflict.
The jihadists could well
succeed in sparking a regional sectarian conflict that would involve multiple
state and non-state actors and would see Iran and Saudi Arabia locked in an
intense proxy war. Western or Israeli involvement in the conflict would please
the jihadists even more.
It is therefore in the
jihadists' interest to thwart a negotiated settlement in Syria. Though it is
still unclear who was responsible for the Dec. 23, 2011, and Jan. 6 suicide
attacks targeting Syrian intelligence, they served the jihadists' purpose as
they forced the regime to crack down even harder on opponents (both armed and
unarmed).
As the rebels and their
supporters respond in kind, the jihadists can thus instigate a cycle of
violence leading to an intensely polarized environment. The net result of such
a process could be a meltdown of the Syrian state and the rise of multiple
armed factions, including jihadists.
The collapse of the Syrian
state in turn would allow the jihadists a wide arena in which to operate,
stretching from Lebanon to Iraq and putting them very close to Jordan, Israel
and the Palestinian territories -- the best theater a jihadist could ask for.
However, the nature of their capabilities, which will determine the extent of
damage they can cause in the Levant and the surrounding area, remains unclear.
It is by no means inevitable
that jihadists will flourish in Syria and use it as a launching pad to
undermine regional security. The Syrian state is still very much holding, and
rebel forces remain divided and do not appear capable of serious advances
against the government.
The Risk of Regional Sectarian
War
The Syrian upheaval takes
place at a time of heightened geopolitical and sectarian tensions in the
region, where Iran and its largely Arab Shiite allies are seeking to make
inroads into the largely Sunni Arab countries.
For Tehran and its main
non-state proxy, the Lebanese Shiite Islamist group Hezbollah, the survival of
an Alawite regime in Syria that owes its survival to Iran is critical. Tehran
and Hezbollah both have a military presence in Syria, which is assisting
Damascus in its efforts to contain the uprising. This is a major cause of concern
for international stakeholders, especially Saudi Arabia. Riyadh is the regional
player most enthusiastic about seeing regime change in Syria to counter the
threat from Iran.
For its part, the
Iranian-aligned government in Iraq has a strong incentive to make sure that
jihadists in Iraq are not able to relocate to Syria. Baghdad knows all too well
that a collapse of the Syrian regime would lead to a revival of Sunni
resistance against the Shia, the last thing the Iraqi Shia wish to see.
The United States and Turkey
want to ensure that al Qaeda is unable to hijack the Syrian uprising. But
neither Washington nor Ankara has the tools to ensure that jihadists don't make
their way through Syria's borders with Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon. The Saudis
share this viewpoint, but because they are somewhat insulated they would not
mind just enough chaos to bring down the Syrian regime, the closest Arab ally
of Iran.
Jordan is already deeply
fearful of the fallout from Syria while it deals with growing unrest at home,
and has a strong interest in making sure Islamist militants on its soil do not
use enter the Syrian conflict. Meanwhile, Lebanon could descend into sectarian
strife, especially as the Syrian state's ability to maintain control there
erodes, the Saudis see an opportunity and the Iranians feel their position
becoming vulnerable.
Just how the many moving parts
in this dynamic interact will determine the extent to which Syria and its
environs become a jihadist playground. A potential collapse of the Syrian state
greatly increases the risk of a regional sectarian war that al Qaeda could
greatly benefit from. The challenge for those seeking regime change in Syria is
thus how to rid the country of Iranian influence while not opening the door to
transnational jihadism.
Kamran Bokhari, Stratfor, February
14, 2012
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